Another Unicorn Tech Start-up

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Meet Oscar!

No, not the award ceremony, a brand new health insurance company.

Founded in 2013, Oscar gives users a very simplistic and easy to use platform to buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The company is banking on its straightforward approach to what has been seen as a very complicated insurance marketplace. They just closed a round of financing with $145 million, making the companies valuation at a staggering $1.5 billion. The company joins a powerful list of super valuable start-ups known as “unicorns”, or tech companies with over 1 billion dollar valuations. This elite group seems to be expanding every week, almost making it a new standard.

Oscar is generating hundreds of millions in annual revenue, and has raised over $250 million from investors thus far. Currently, the company has over 40,000 customers in New Jersey and New York area.

Oscar was founded in 2013, by venture capitalist Joshua Kushner, and Kevin Nazemi who was apart of Microsoft’s health care program, along with Mario Schlosser who is the main computer scientist. Oscar will be direct rivals to Aetna and UnitedHealth, but it allows users to talk to doctors on the phone for free, and always gives fitness trackers/ rewards for hitting your goals.

“We really have been growing about twice as quickly as we thought, and we’ll continue going up from here,” Schlosser says. “The rest of the healthcare system is so damn complicated and complex that if you really navigate it on your own you’re sort of out of luck. So we’re your trusted guide to help you through the system, so you can get connected to the right doctors and hospitals.”

This could be a great new trend, and a fantastic way to search for coverage. It could end up saving both users and doctors time for issues that might just need a quick phone call.